I served half my sentence, and then the other half,
every day of it. But during the last two years
I had very little to complain of except the loss of
my liberty. I was put into the cook shop where
I could get better food, and I did pretty much what
I pleased. By general consent I was let alone.
They had found out that ill usage only made me “ugly,”
while kindness made me at least behave myself.
And so the three weary years of my confinement were
on to an end.

At last the happy day of my deliverance came.
The penalty for pretending to marry one milliner and
for being married by another milliner was paid.
My sentence was fulfilled. I had looked forward
to this day for months. Of all my jail and prison
life in different States, this in Vermont was the
hardest, the most severe. My obstinacy, no doubt,
did much at first to enhance my sufferings, and it
was the accident only of my saving Morey’s life
that made the last part of my imprisonment a little
more tolerable. When I was preparing to go, it
was discovered that the fine suit of clothes I wore
into the prison had been given by mistake or design
to some one else, and my silk hat and calf-skin boots
had gone with the clothes. But never mind!
I would have gone out into the world in rags-my liberty
was all I wanted then. The Warden gave me one
of his own old coats, a ragged pair of pantaloons,
and a new pair of brogan shoes. He also gave
me three dollars, which was precisely a dollar a year
for my services, and this was more than I ever meant
to earn there. Thus equipped and supplied I was
sent out into the streets of Windsor.

I had not gone half a mile before I met a poor old
woman whom I had known very well in Rutland.
She recognized me at once, though I know I was sadly
changed for the worse. She was on her way to Fall
River, where she had relatives, and where she hoped
for help, but had no money to pay her fare, so I divided
my small stock with her, and that left me just one
dollar and a half with which to begin the world again.
I went down to the bridge and the toll-gatherer gave